One of the things that I've noticed during the "Age of Facebook" is that there are a large number of people who appear to be well-rounded Mormons. They're usually friends with people like Dan Peterson and other high profile Mormons. Last night a mutual friend of Kerry Shirts and Dan Peterson commented on one of Kerry's posts. It was the usual Loran Blood type rant against all things "leftist." That didn't really surprise me. What really surprised me is that when I clicked on this guy's profile it showed he had made a recent comment on this Right Wing website.

He said, and I quote:

The facts are overwhelming.... blacks are sick animals... not that there aren't some blacks who don't fit either category, either sick or an animal. In fact you may find a small,...very small,... minority that are worth being around.

But the problem is all you need to do is take one example from the other category and regardless of the vast numbers of productive blacks you may assemble, when you mix even one from the destructive category in with the productive they all become sick animals... it's just a matter of time.

Ultimately, we conclude that their nature is to choose evil over good.... that's not racism... that's what they have shown to the world time and time again... in every nation and in every community in which they live.

And so, it isn't so much our property they are stealing as the hard fought and paid for in the blood of our ancestors, peaceful way of life that exists wherever white people live and govern over themselves.

Now, I know what you're thinking. This is just one racist opinion by a guy who happens to be Mormon and shouldn't be used to describe Mormonism at large. Well, of course. If this were just an anomaly.

But I have noticed over the years that there are more and more anomalies like this who gradually appear on the scene, as if to say, I'm not going to hide my racist roots anymore. They all sport the usual "Good Mormon" image. Their Facebook photos are loaded with mission pictures of themselves and even their children, their timelines are loaded with one General Authority citation after another, and then unexpectedly they poison that wholesome Good Mormon image with racist ____ like this.

I think it is interesting because Dan Peterson will go out of his way to find reasons to accuse me and other critics of bigotry and racism, yet he doesn't say a flippin word when his own "friends" exhibit extreme racist views.

"Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn’t participate enthusiastically." - Robert Kirby

Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. -- Henry Lawson

That black American culture is sick is the sentiment given by a Kenyan missionary companion of mine who came thinking blacks were somehow being oppressed in the USA and left with the opposite view. We served together in downtown L.A.

Some of this reappearance of racism has to do with Obama stalling the White Horse Prophecy (which the Church officially does not endorse), beating Mitt Romney (R-Utah, California, Shangri-la) in the last Presidential election and tending to vote for the Democratic candidates.

When you add those factors in, it overrides recent Church teachings. Similarly, the Council of Scorpions has been adamant about not stinging animals giving Scorpions a ride across the stream, but you know....

bcspace wrote:That black American culture is sick is the sentiment given by a Kenyan missionary companion of mine who came thinking blacks were somehow being oppressed in the USA and left with the opposite view. We served together in downtown L.A.

Here's an example of classic bigotry. You spend time in a high-crime, high-poverty area for a few months and then tell us without reservation that what you saw represents the culture of 40 million people spread across the country. And what justifies you saying that 40 million people you've never met are sick? They have the same skin color of the people you met in downtown Los Angeles.

Wait, no, it's probably not race, just lineage.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS

bcspace wrote:That black American culture is sick is the sentiment given by a Kenyan missionary companion of mine who came thinking blacks were somehow being oppressed in the USA and left with the opposite view. We served together in downtown L.A.

I can understand people's desire to address the very real issues with "black" culture. (Crime, drugs, guys with ten baby-mamas) But it seems critically important to me that you use better terminology. The thug/gangster culture may be largely full of black people, but that does not mean black people are all a part of the thug/gangster culture.

I also think the thug culture is sick and is ruining generations of otherwise good people. But it is racist and offensive to imply that "blacks" in general fall into this category. The culture sucks whether you are black, Vanilla Ice or whoever.

It made me incredibly sad to hear it from a family member who said: "sure, technically blacks aren't all bad, but at the same time, I've never one that I liked."

Honestly, I think this type of racism is driven by ignorance. Some people have honestly seen so little of the world that they think all black people sell drugs and have 10 baby-mamas, all gay people walk around in black leather and hump 10 different people a week and all decent women prefer to stay home and have babies.

ControlFreak wrote:I can understand people's desire to address the very real issues with "black" culture. (Crime, drugs, guys with ten baby-mamas) But it seems critically important to me that you use better terminology. The thug/gangster culture may be largely full of black people, but that does not mean black people are all a part of the thug/gangster culture.

I also think the thug culture is sick and is ruining generations of otherwise good people. But it is racist and offensive to imply that "blacks" in general fall into this category. The culture sucks whether you are black, Vanilla Ice or whoever.

It made me incredibly sad to hear it from a family member who said: "sure, technically blacks aren't all bad, but at the same time, I've never one that I liked."

Honestly, I think this type of racism is driven by ignorance. Some people have honestly seen so little of the world that they think all black people sell drugs and have 10 baby-mamas, all gay people walk around in black leather and hump 10 different people a week and all decent women prefer to stay home and have babies.

Obviously ignorance isn't a legitimate excuse.

This is the same guy who met a few gay people in Los Angeles and now says he completely understands the "gay lifestyle and agenda."

Bcspace reminds me of my mom, who often says, "I'm not racist, but ..."

"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS

bcspace wrote:This shows the desperation of the "critical" crowd to find something that isn't there. moksha admitted to lying above and for what reason? None that makes any sense.

Moksha's post was tongue in cheek, so getting all pissy about a "lie" is silly, unless you really are just trying to deflect attention from your own racism. I wouldn't put it past you.

People who continue to justify the church's racist past--even if cloaked in nonsense about "lineage"--are perpetuating the racism in the church. At least President Hinckley had the good sense to try and put it behind us.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS

That's interesting, and disappointing, Kevin. You would think that the more educated Mopologists would be a bit more sensitive to this sort of thing, given Mormonism's history. I can't help but remember that DCP sent me on my way to being banned from the old FAIR messageboard after I expressed some, uh, "concern" over the fact that he openly admitted to "warning" interracial couples about getting married--telling them how "challenging" it would be, and so forth. I'm betting that, to this day, he still doesn't get why this is problematic--why people might think that was racist. (And this is to say nothing of other weird things he's done: e.g., relating that story about how "great" slavery was in the U.S., because now American blacks don't have to live in the same conditions as black folks in Africa; or his posting of that lynching photo; or the misguided comments on Martin Luther King Day, etc.) It may be a generational thing--I seem to recall some rather ugly tokenism from Midgley over the political campaign of that woman from, IIRC, St. George.

I think the bottomline is that the apologetic leadership really needs to take a stronger stand on issues like this. Otherwise, as you point out, Kevin, they open themselves up--organizationally--to accusations like this.

"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:The Church still has a huge problem with racism. We have a terrible history of institutionalized racism from the top to the bottom.

If members like Daniel C. Peterson, bcspace, ldsfaqs, subgenius and others are any indication, racism will be in the Church for a long time to come.

And, I believe, the only way the LDS Church can begin to make real headway with the problem of racism is to officially renounce and apologize for the priesthood ban, as well as admit that the ban's origin had nothing to do with God but was purely the product of mankind's racism of the times.

As racist as that guy's post was on that conservative site, I don't think it's fair to paint Dan as a racist because he hasn't denounced that comment. I doubt he's even seen it, as Kevin had to dig through a few links to find it.

I don't appreciate people keeping racism in the church alive by making lame defenses of the priesthood ban, but it's not fair to lump Dan in with this guy's crap.

Kevin Graham wrote:One of the things that I've noticed during the "Age of Facebook" is that there are a large number of people who appear to be well-rounded Mormons. They're usually friends with people like Dan Peterson and other high profile Mormons. Last night a mutual friend of Kerry Shirts and Dan Peterson commented on one of Kerry's posts. It was the usual Loran Blood type rant against all things "leftist." That didn't really surprise me. What really surprised me is that when I clicked on this guy's profile it showed he had made a recent comment on this Right Wing website.

He said, and I quote:

The facts are overwhelming.... blacks are sick animals... not that there aren't some blacks who don't fit either category, either sick or an animal. In fact you may find a small,...very small,... minority that are worth being around.

But the problem is all you need to do is take one example from the other category and regardless of the vast numbers of productive blacks you may assemble, when you mix even one from the destructive category in with the productive they all become sick animals... it's just a matter of time.

Ultimately, we conclude that their nature is to choose evil over good.... that's not racism... that's what they have shown to the world time and time again... in every nation and in every community in which they live.

And so, it isn't so much our property they are stealing as the hard fought and paid for in the blood of our ancestors, peaceful way of life that exists wherever white people live and govern over themselves.

Now, I know what you're thinking. This is just one racist opinion by a guy who happens to be Mormon and shouldn't be used to describe Mormonism at large. Well, of course. If this were just an anomaly.

But I have noticed over the years that there are more and more anomalies like this who gradually appear on the scene, as if to say, I'm not going to hide my racist roots anymore. They all sport the usual "Good Mormon" image. Their Facebook photos are loaded with mission pictures of themselves and even their children, their timelines are loaded with one General Authority citation after another, and then unexpectedly they poison that wholesome Good Mormon image with racist s*** like this.

I think it is interesting because Dan Peterson will go out of his way to find reasons to accuse me and other critics of bigotry and racism, yet he doesn't say a flippin word when his own "friends" exhibit extreme racist views.

So I take it this guy was opposed to the 1978 "revelation"?

"We have taken up arms in defense of our liberty, our property, our wives, and our children; we are determined to preserve them, or die." - Captain Moroni - 'Address to the Inhabitants of Canada' 1775

Rollo Tomasi wrote:And, I believe, the only way the LDS Church can begin to make real headway with the problem of racism is to officially renounce and apologize for the priesthood ban, as well as admit that the ban's origin had nothing to do with God but was purely the product of mankind's racism of the times.

As long as I can remember, the church has been saying they don't know why the ban was put into effect. This avoids denouncing any past prophets and allows the church to dismiss earlier doctrinal pronouncements. But it leaves the door open for members to justify in public (Randy Bott, anyone?) racist teachings the church would rather forget. I'm guessing the Public Affairs department really hates it when members speak up on such things.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it Norm--that I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night." -- Clifford C. Clavin, USPS

Runtu wrote:As racist as that guy's post was on that conservative site, I don't think it's fair to paint Dan as a racist because he hasn't denounced that comment. I doubt he's even seen it, as Kevin had to dig through a few links to find it.

I don't appreciate people keeping racism in the church alive by making lame defenses of the priesthood ban, but it's not fair to lump Dan in with this guy's crap.

The thing is he is on Dan's friends list, and it isn't like this is the only time I've come across this sort of thing. I didn't really have to dig either. I clicked on his profile and boom, right there you see his recent post which he advertised on Facebook for all his "friends" to see. After that was another bigoted joke about a "Jewish" Grandmother. Anyone on his friends list would get regular updates on what he posts, or at least that is generally the way my Facebook account is set up.

Dan played the ignorance card several times at MAD when I would complain to him that he never once spoke up to denounce any of the bigoted remarks from his fellow mopologists. He'd always say something like he is busy and doesn't always see what they write. But then we see him defend the likes of Will Schryver after admitting he's read all the evidence proving he is a misogynist.

I'm not saying Dan is racist, I'm just saying he has a double-standard. He tolerates it and then he doesn't tolerate it, all based upon the racist's religious loyalties.

Kevin Graham wrote:The thing is he is on Dan's friends list, and it isn't like this is the only time I've come across this sort of thing. I didn't really have to dig either. I clicked on his profile and boom, right there you see his recent post which he advertised on Facebook for all his "friends" to see. After that was another bigoted joke about a "Jewish" Grandmother.

Dan played the ignorance card several times at MAD when I would complain to him that he never once spoke up to denounce any of the bigoted remarks from his fellow mopologists. He'd always say something like he is busy and doesn't always see what they write. But then we see him defend the likes of Will Schryver after admitting he's read all the evidence proving he is a misogynist.

I'm not saying Dan is racist, I'm just saying he has a double-standard. He tolerates it and then he doesn't tolerate it, all based upon the racist's religious loyalties.

On occasion my wife will get angry with me because someone on my Facebook friends list will say something about Mormonism that she finds offensive. She thinks I should immediately decry the offensive stuff, or it means I agree with it. Almost always it's something I haven't even seen (I'm not on Facebook much anymore), and unless it piques my interest, I rarely click on Facebook posts. That's what I think is unfair.

What this guy wrote was disgusting and racist, but he wrote it in the comments section of a web site that I've never heard of, and unless I'm missing something, there's no reason to believe Dan saw that comment or the article itself.

I'm just saying that I'm fine with decrying racism when it appears, but I don't believe in holding people accountable for what other people say, unless I know they've seen it and approve of it.